NO2019 Announcement

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Last year at the Nutrition Olympiad 2018 I was stunned at the enthusiasm by young people for changing Bangladesh to be a better place in terms of nutrition and healthy diets. More than 900 youth and adolescents and their supporters took active part in the Nutrition Olympiad 2018. I astonishingly witnessed the aspiration of the youth for improving nutrition of all generations, putting an end to poverty, achieving gender equity, and calling for “Leave no one behind” by adopting the crucially important principle of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to their Nutrition Club activities at school, community-based work, and advocacy and sensitization efforts at home for their family members.

This is my third time I participate in the Nutrition Olympiad and the second time I am privileged to organize the event in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh and the BIID. I am extremely delighted to engage once again in a gathering of such dedicated, enthusiastic and future looking youngsters of the country that experiences one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world as well as micronutrient deficiencies, or more commonly known as “hidden hunger”. I am confident that a successful eradication of malnutrition and food insecurity in Bangladesh rests to a great degree with the engagement of these teenagers and adolescents in deciding on the direction of national development and on its priorities in the future.

To this end, the Olympiad this year features “Foster Youth Engagement for a Well-Nourished World”, cultivating the youth and youth group networks developed at national and regional levels to improve nutrition for all. As is the case with the previous two Olympiads, the 2019 event also offers the rare opportunities to showcase their achievements on nutrition made in 2018/19 and the excellent occasions to provide their insights into reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as to conduct policy discussions around a Bangladesh Food and Nutrition Security Policy that is being formulated under the leadership of the Ministry of Food with technical assistance from the Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) project.

The MUCH project, implemented by the Government of Bangladesh and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), continues to provide policy advice to the enablers of food and nutrition security and strengthens their capacities to achieve a malnutrition free Bangladesh. These enablers are the government decision and policy makers, technical officers endeavoring to improve vulnerable livelihoods at national and sub-national levels, experts in academia, civil society and the private sector, and the development partners engaged in assistance in sustainable development, in particular hunger and malnutrition. Indeed, the implementation of MUCH is impossible without the generous financial assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union (EU).

I welcome and look forward to seeing all of you who have already registered for the Nutrition Olympiad 2019 but also those who have yet to decide on their participation in this exciting event. Do in a hurry to keep abreast with the various interesting topics that should nurture your nutrition mindsets!